1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data entry systems for providing computer readable records.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Data entry systems of many different types have been available as long as the recording of information has been desired. With the advent of the computer, the sophistication of data entry systems so as to provide computer readable records has increased. Computer readable records may be in many different formats, such as keypunch cards which are fed to a computer to be read thereby, magnetic disc storage which can be read by computer or magnetic tape which can be read by computer. The information is normally stored on cards from a keypunch in an alphanumeric ASCII code or in binary coded decimal (BCD) and, similarly, the information may be stored in some binary data format on a disc or a tape. Examples of such prior art data entry systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,852,716; 3,223,979; 2,333,463; 3,535,467; 3,000,555; 2,987,704; 2,933,469; 2,850,719; 2,793,806; 3,144,549; 3,533,071; and 3,832,733. Some of these prior art systems, such as in the type commonly termed "point-of-sale" systems, utilize plug board inputs to a computer to provide a computer readable record, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,852,716. An example of such a system is one presently in use at some of the franchised hamburger stands operated by McDonald's Corp. In those systems a probe or plug board is directly interconnected with a computer for automatically recording the sale and providing the appropriate pricing information relating thereto. With respect to the provision of historical information records, such as market survey information, concerning products purchased by consumers, price paid, where bought, etc., the prior art mode of recording this information was customarily to assign a number code to each possibility, and thereafter record this number on forms which were subsequently keypunched on to cards for ultimate computer input. However, it required a laborious effort requiring many keypunch operators to record all of this information from a representative sample group upon which the market survey was being conducted, and was time consuming requiring many manual operations to keypunch the multidigit codes assigned to different products and their associated attributes. Furthermore, such a system gave rise to the possibility of errors in misreading or mispunching various codes, as well as being time consuming so as to not optimize the time required to provide a computer readable record of this information. These diadvantages of the prior art are overcome by the system of the present invention.